Ariel 3

[smeghead]

https://www.chrishallmotorcycles.co.uk/ ... /13257.htm

You know you want it!

[MrGrumpy]

You can't believe that they seriously sold these can you!!!

[Ralph]

After they stopped selling them they sold off
hundreds of the Morini? engines for a few quid.

[smeghead]

The dealer has some nice bikes, worth a shufty at the site.

[Deleted User 4154]

£2500 is well over the top. You can still pick up reasonable ones well under a grand.

Bonkers, aren't they?

[roadster]

You can't believe that they seriously sold these can you!!!

Perhaps the trouble was that they were not serious. Its a moped that practically anyone could ride with minimal driving license requirements. It has some weather protection, a spare wheel, the same riding and parking benefits from the extra wheel as a Piaggio MP3, better luggage capacity than any other moped available at the time. Mister Honda's offering in this segment in that era still rates as the best selling motorcycle ever. In fact a brilliant design concept which was well ahead of its time but badly engineered and marketed.

[Davefirestorm]

The straw that broke a camels back BSA thought every housewife in the country would want one,they didn’t and sold very few.As stated they had hundreds/thousands of the engines,think they were made by Anka? or possibly Moroni as Ralph says.All downhill from then the Bandit scrapped etc.etc. They went bust not long after

[Ralph]

Ariel 3, Arial Pixie, BSA Beagle, all nails in the coffin.
I actually had a Triumph Tina for a wile, only problem
I had with it was the kickstart ratchet would ware
out but other than that it did many thousands of
miles, it had steal ball bearings instead of rollers in
the variator.

[Greyerbeard]

The advertising didn't exactly help - even the BSA group didn't know what it was.

[Davefirestorm]

BSA were using people who knew f*ck all about motorcycles or the people that bought motorcycles to design new products and also held the belief that they had no competition from Japan,big mistake .They also had shareholders to please so sacrificed possible new ideas/products ie the Bandit/Fury 350s to satisfy them.I went to the factory to pick a bike up in 1970 it was massive and I couldn’t believe it when they went bust,very sad indeed